The grander the promise, the higher the requirement for proof. Promotion and achievement are very different, as many now find out.

The Silent Hunter 4 modding community is an open community which shares discoveries between modders, and uses an open source model. This encourages alpha and beta releases of mods to players and other modders for evaluation and suggestions during development. This practice has been criticized as "amateur" but it lets the public into the exciting process of the birth of a finished mod, sharing the false steps as well as the triumphs before the finished product appears. It is based on a trust in the players and other modders to appreciate the fact that they are a real and important part of the mod's development. And in the extreme case of the death of an important modder, like leovampire, it allows the work to be carried on by others. The SH4 modding community is resilient, growing, open and real.

This is very unlike the SH3 modding scene, which was dominated by the proprietary nature of GWX, which benefited no other modders because of their secretive, combative and predatory competitiveness which sought to deny the modding community of the benefits of their discoveries instead of sharing their techniques and methods, even attacking independent developments as repeats of things they had accomplished, usually "years" before, but had never shared with anyone. Based on that specious claim, they then sought to discredit the modders who shared the techniques with the community. They were portrayed as stealing GWX technology. In an open-source community, the Grey Wolves were fish out of water. They benefited no one.

The departure of the Grey Wolves leaves us destitute, so far as the accomplishments of GWX are concerned. No one will continue the work. The methods and techniques are lost to the community, since they were never shared. It is as if they never were. And that is their legacy.

Some of us have always said to enjoy what you have and not postpone your enjoyment of the best sub simulator on the planet just because someone, no matter who grandiose, promises to "save the world."

Operation Monsun is incredible if you love U-Boats, allowing you to play a complete and historically accurate (as far as SH4 will allow you without wolfpacks) campaign mode that equals GWX anything by a wide margin .

Fall of the Rising Sun IS our GWX for the Pacific, with incredible eyecandy, lots of TMO goodness in there and the best intro in Silent Hunter anything modding.

These are SHARED techniques, not black boxes, which are freely available to all Silent Hunter 4 modders for their own mods. As new modders come in and modders leave the community there is a continued growth of knowledge and improved mods for players continue to be produced.

I am sorry to lose GWX. The rogue motorcycle gang-like Grey Wolves no longer fit the great community we have independently forged in SH4.

The Silent Hunter 4 modding community is an open community which shares discoveries between modders, and uses an open source model....
......These are SHARED techniques, not black boxes, which are freely available to all Silent Hunter 4 modders for their own mods. As new modders come in and modders leave the community there is a continued growth of knowledge and improved mods for players continue to be produced.

I am sorry to lose GWX. The rogue motorcycle gang-like Grey Wolves no longer fit the great community we have independently forged in SH4.

With the recent insights from the developers that SH5 is being built on SH4 and that the file structure will be recognizable, the efforts of that open community should endure.

I wasnt aware they were so secretive, but it explains I guess why none of them were willing to respond to multiple requests as to what the song was in the GWX3 intro.
I can vouch for O.M. It is very well done. Guess Im gonna have to check out Rising Sun.

"Some ships are designed to sink… others require our assistance."
"We shall never forget that it was our submarines that held the lines against the enemy while our fleets replaced losses and repaired

FOTRS is the supermod that gets no respect. Very little attention seems to be paid to it and it's GREAT! If you're a GWX player the SH4 mod you'll like best is FOTRS. The targets are so beautiful you'll hate to sink 'em! (or not...)

Somehow snippets turn up here and there that FOTRS isn't finished or it's full of glitches.... all untrue. This is a masterpiece, based on TMO with Ducimus' active cooperation and with 3d modders extraordinairre making a mod with a distinctly different personality and one I consider every bit equal to RFB and TMO.